VW Golf Design Vision GTI first drive

This is a Volkswagen Golf GTI like no other. Conceived by Volkswagen’s engineers and designers for the Wörthersee tuning festival held in Reifntiz, Austria in the summer, this just-for-show mega hatch packs almost 500bhp and can cover 0-62mph in a supercar-baiting 3.9secs as it sends its prodigious power to all four wheels.

Under the race-inspired Design Vision GTI’s craziness is Volkswagen Group’s clever MQB small car platform. The wheelbase remains the same as the standard Golf GTI that’s built on MQB, but the other dimensions have been tweaked.

The show car is 15mm shorter, at 4253mm, because it has a more compact rear end. The Design Vision GTI is 1385mm high, some 57mm lower than its sister, thanks to a lowered roof and suspension. It is also significantly broader at 1870mm instead of 1799mm. This has enabled the track widths to be pushed out to 1595mm (a 57mm increase) at the front and 1579mm (a 63mm increase) at the rear.

Volkswagen hasn’t revealed how much the car weighs, but it is clad mainly in plastic panels, and has the rear seats removed, a stripped-down cabin and none of the niceties like insulation and soundproofing that production cars have.

Under the bonnet, in place of the 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot found in the conventional GTI, the Design Vision has a three-litre, twin-turbocharged VR6. The engine produces maximum power of 496bhp at 6500rpm and maximum torque of 413lb ft between 4000 and 6000rpm, distributed to the front and rear wheels via a six-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox and the Haldex-based all-wheel-drive system found in the VW Golf 4Motion.

The new powerplant is also featured in the CrossBlue Coupé SUV concept, albeit in a less outrageous state of tune, and is also reportedly planned for use in the future Passat replacement.

Volkswagen stresses that the Design Vision GTI is a show car and hasn’t been tuned for dynamic perfection. Nevertheless our short test on a temporary course in Los Angeles offered hints as to how grin-inducing this vehicle could be if it were ever developed into a production car.

For a start, it looks stunning, taking VW’s GTI philosophy and turning all the dials up to eleven. The car’s exterior designer, Andreas Mindt, told us that the styling draws cues from several generations of Golf GTI, as well as pointing to what we can expect from future generations of the iconic hot hatch. The wider track and lower roof give it a muscular and sinister appearance.

Like a modern racing car, the Design Vision’s cabin is pared-back to the essential controls and features carbonfibre-effect finishing and Alcantara.

There’s a TFT LCD instrument display, although it wasn’t working during our drive, and a large screen on the centre console that can be configured to show a circuit map and supply lap time information. In place of regular internal door pulls there are red fabric loops, a nod to the Porsche Cup racing car.

On the other hand, conventional indicator and light stalks, an electric parking brake and climate control dials are reminders of the Design Vision GTI’s road car roots. 

Behind the driver’s seat, where you’d normally find the rear seats, is a cross member, which has increased the body stiffness. There are also two black crash helmets stored behind the cross member, where the boot would be.